To Scapula 3
Summary: Tertullian points to disasters and to the miserable deaths of persecuting governors as signs of God's wrath and warns Scapula that judgment is coming.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · Oehler 1:542–546
Tamen, sicut supra diximus, doleamus necesse est, quod nulla civitas impune latura sit sanguinis nostri effusionem; sicut et sub Hilariano praeside, cum de areis sepulturarum nostrarum adclamassent: Areae non sint! areae ipsorum non fuerunt! Messes enim suas non egerunt. Ceterum et imbres anni praeteriti quid commemoraverint genus humanum apparuit, cataclysmum scilicet et retro fuisse propter incredulitates et iniquitates hominum, et ignes, qui super moenia Carthaginis proxime pependerunt per noctem, quid minati sint, sciunt qui viderunt, et pristina tonitrua quid sonaverint, sciunt qui obduruerunt. Omnia haec signa sunt imminentis irae dei, quam necesse est, quoquo modo possumus, ut et nuntiemus et praedicemus et deprecemur interim localem esse. Universalem enim et supremam suo tempore sentient qui exempla eius aliter interpretantur. Nam et sol ille in conventu Uticensi extincto paene lumine adeo portentum fuit, ut non potuerit ex ordinario deliquio hoc pati positus in suo hypsomate et domicilio. Habetis astrologos. Possumus aeque et exitus quorundam praesidum tibi proponere, qui in fine vitae suae recordati sunt deliquisse, quod vexassent Christianos. Vigellius Saturninus, qui primus hic gladium in nos egit, lumina amisit. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, cum, indigne ferens uxorem suam ad hanc sectam transisse, Christianos crudeliter tractasset, solusque in praetorio suo vastatus peste convivis vermibus ebullisset, Nemo sciat, aiebat, ne gaudeant Christiani aut sperent Christianae. Postea cognito errore suo, quod tormentis quosdam a proposito suo excidere fecisset, paene Christianus decessit. Caecilius Capella in illo exitu Byzantino, Christiani gaudete exclamavit. Sed qui videntur sibi impune tulisse, venient in diem divini iudicii. Tibi quoque optamus admonitionem solam fuisse, quod cum Adrumeticum Mavilum ad bestias damnasses, et statim haec vexatio subsecuta est et nunc ex eadem causa interpellatio sanguinis. Sed memento de cetero.
English · Claude translation
Yet, as we said above, we must grieve that no city will bear the shedding of our blood unpunished. So it was under the governor Hilarianus, when they had shouted about the areas of our burial grounds, “No areas for them!”: their own threshing floors were no more, for they did not gather their harvests. Moreover, what last year's rains recalled to the human race was plain: namely, that there was once a deluge too, because of the unbelief and wickedness of men. And what the fires that recently hung over the walls of Carthage through the night threatened, those who saw them know; and what the earlier thunders sounded, those who were hardened know. All these are signs of the imminent wrath of God, which we must, in whatever way we can, both announce and proclaim, and pray that meanwhile it may remain local. For those who interpret its warnings otherwise will feel it universal and final in its own time. For that sun too at the assize of Utica, its light almost put out, was such a portent that it could not have suffered this from an ordinary eclipse, standing as it was in its exaltation and its own house. You have astrologers. We can likewise set before you the ends of certain governors, who at the close of their lives remembered that they had sinned in harassing Christians. Vigellius Saturninus, who first used the sword against us here, lost his sight. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, resenting that his wife had gone over to this sect, treated Christians cruelly; and when, alone in his residence, wasted by a plague, he had boiled over with living worms, he kept saying, “Let no one know, lest the Christians rejoice or Christian women hope.” Afterward, recognizing his error in having made some fall away from their resolve by torture, he died almost a Christian. Caecilius Capella, at that fall of Byzantium, cried out, “Christians, rejoice!” But those who think they have escaped unpunished will come to the day of divine judgment. For you too we wish it to have been a warning only that, when you had condemned Mavilus of Hadrumetum to the beasts, this trouble followed at once, and now for the same cause the call of blood. But be mindful of what is to come.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- “Areas” plays on area, which means both a burial ground and a threshing floor. The eclipse at Utica is probably that of 14 August 212, which dates the work. Vigellius Saturninus was proconsul in 180 (Scillitan martyrs). The digital text is damaged at “Byzantino” (the siege of Byzantium, 196), at “Christiani gaudete”, and at “nunc ex eadem causa”, restored here; the last “call of blood” (interpellatio sanguinis) is obscure and may refer to a current illness of Scapula (cf. ch. 4).
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (OCR slip; uncertain characters marked in the digital text; uncertain-character marker in the digital text): a proposito sue → a proposito suo; By(??)mtinor, → Byzantino,; gaudete (??) exclamavit → gaudete exclamavit; hace vexatio → haec vexatio; (??)nc en eadem → nunc ex eadem; de cetere → de cetero.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Scap. 3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-scapulam/3/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Scap. 3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-scapulam/3/).
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